Ein UNC-Doktorand hat einen neugeborenen Planeten entdeckt, der einen jungen Stern umkreist, dessen Entstehung nur drei Millionen Jahre dauerte – gemessen an kosmischen Maßstäben recht schnell –, eine Entdeckung, die das derzeitige Verständnis der Geschwindigkeit der Planetenentstehung in Frage stellt.

Madyson Barber, a grad student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was researching young transiting systems in space when she made a remarkable discovery.

Barber used data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to observe the brightness of stars over time. During the observations, Barber noticed some “little dips” in brightness, indicating that a “transiting” planet may be passing near Earth.

“This planet discovery popped out,” Barber told ABC News.

The planet, named IRAS 04125+2902 b, is estimated to be 3 million years old, which is considered “young” for planets, Barber said. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and took an estimated 10 million to 20 millions to form. The next youngest known planet is about 10 million years old, Barber said.

“It’s about the same as a 10-day-old baby in human timescale,” she added. “So, super, super young in comparison to our home.”

Nicknamed “TIDYE-1b” by researchers, the new planet has been shown to have an orbital period of 8.83 days, according to a paper published Thursday in Nature. It has a radius about 10.7 times larger than Earth and has approximately 30% of the mass of Jupiter.

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08123-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08123-3)

I initially read this as “student was spotted orbiting around a young star”.

What on earth is that title? Why on earth stretch it to such an unwieldy sentence?

“A UNC student spotted a newly formed planet around a young star. At less than 3 million years old, the planet challenges current understanding of planetary formation.”